


Sea-Change

by margdean56



Series: Tower Mountain/New Hope stories [10]
Category: Elfquest
Genre: Gen, Peysol/Lake, Tower Mountain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/margdean56/pseuds/margdean56
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory can be an elusive thing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea-Change

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in _Tales of the Tower #19_

TWR 1122

“Will you follow me, Honored One? My master awaits you.” The middle-aged human bowed with just the proper degree of deference as he held open the embroidered door-curtain. The tiny, pale elf outside fixed him with her unsettling coral gaze as she stepped daintily through the doorway, but unlike many of Tower Mountain’s human servants, the man neither flinched nor avoided her eyes. Lake smiled. She was sure he feared her—they all feared the “White Spirit”—but Peysol’s servants were too well trained to betray such an emotion to an honored guest of their master.

Lake followed the man into Peysol’s apartments, through the high-ceilinged common room, along several twists of hallway and up a curving flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was another doorway, leading to the chamber Peysol currently referred to as his breakfast room. Its blue and green patterned curtains were half open, and through them shone a pale light that seemed blazingly bright after the Tower’s shadowed corridors. The servant halted just outside the doorway and bowed again to indicate that Lake should precede him.

Lake paused momentarily to make a minute adjustment to the drape of her pale blue silk morning gown over her right shoulder before sailing into the room. But for once her entrance went unappreciated, for Peysol was not looking toward her. Instead the slim blond elf stood before the windows at the far side of the room, gazing out on the sunny summer morning. The light shining on and through his hair turned it almost as white as hers.

The scuff of her sandals on the chamber’s tiled floor alerted him, however, and he quickly turned to face her, the long blue dressing gown he wore swirling about his slippered feet. “Ah, Lake! Good morning!” A welcoming smile lit his face and his bright blue eyes. “Forgive me, I was woolgathering. A moment—” He turned back to the windows, reaching over the row of potted plants that stood beneath them, and swiveled shut some of the tall, narrow panes. Their cloudy blue and green piecework of glass diluted the sunlight to a cool underwater radiance.

That done and the comfort of his guest provided for (for Lake, an albino, could endure direct sunlight only for a very short time), Peysol quickly crossed the room to take Lake’s hand and lead her to a low table set about with cushions in the shaded section of the chamber. “Leravie may join us later,” he said, “but she was up late last night finishing off a commission, so I decided to let her sleep.” He chuckled, glancing toward the other doorway which led to the suite’s bedroom. “She isn’t much of a morning person anyway, as you may remember.”

The table was already laid for breakfast, with new bread, honey, a bowl of fresh berries and a pot of gently steaming herbal tea. No sooner were the two elves settled than another of Peysol’s humans appeared, a slim, dark, silent woman who poured and served with an unobtrusive and efficient grace. Neither elf took the slightest notice of her presence.

“‘Woolgathering,’ Peysol?” Lake asked with arch amusement. “You? Surely the distinguished Wardrobe Master has humans to do menial labor like that.”

Peysol laughed. “Sure enough, if I’d meant it literally. I must admit I’m not usually given to daydreaming, either.” He took a sip of tea, his gaze drifting back to the open windows. “But it is a beautiful morning—all washed clean by the storm, and the lake sparkling in the sun.” He sighed deeply.

“That _was_ quite a storm last night,” said Lake. “My lord and I found it very … exciting.” She ran a white finger along the rim of the honey pot and licked it deliberately, watching him. He flicked an eyebrow at her and shook his head ever so slightly, but did not rebuke her for the impropriety as he once would have done. Peysol and his lovemate Leravie had been Lake’s tutors in the social graces when she first came to Tower Mountain. Now, however, she was the declared lovemate of Lord Tyaar and, as Peysol freely acknowledged, no longer in need of his tutelage. Instead their relationship had mellowed into that of friends. Such a relationship was rare in Lake’s experience. Despite her current status in Tower Mountain, there were few elves who would ask her to breakfast simply for the pleasure of her company.

At the moment, however, Peysol did not seem to be taking his customary delight in her presence. Instead he was looking out the window again, the teacup forgotten in his hands. Lake had never seen him so abstracted before. He was usually the most attentive of hosts. “Do you really need so much wool at this time of year, Peysol?” she asked sweetly.

His attention instantly snapped back to her. “Forgive me! I seem to be very poor company this morning. I was sea-dreaming last night,” he added by way of explanation. “The storm set me off, I suppose.”

She cocked her head at him. “Sea-dreaming?”

His smile was wistful. “I never mentioned my sea dreams to you? No, I suppose I wouldn’t have. I don’t remember having one since before you arrived here. They’ve never been frequent, but they’ve never completely gone away either. I’m not sure I’d want them to.”

“But what are they?”

“Just dreams. In them, I’m by the sea … or on it, more usually. I loved sailing, back at the Old Settlement. I’ll see the water spreading out endlessly before me, hear the rush of the waves and the gulls crying, smell the salt air, feel the spray and the heave of a deck under my feet … but I always wake up, alas!” Peysol smiled and shook his head as if amused by his own sentimentality, but added, “It’s the only thing I really miss, living in Tower Mountain—the sea. Even after so many eights-of-eights, the longing has never entirely left me.”

Lake looked at Peysol curiously. The slim, relaxed figure in its elaborately embroidered robe (though it was embroidered with fantastical fish shapes, she noticed now, in green and blue and silver), reclining on a pile of cushions and sipping meditatively at a cup of tea, was difficult to reconcile with heaving decks and gulls and storms at sea. She tried to imagine his long, deft hands, which could work magic with a length of cloth, hauling on a rope or a fishnet, the blue eyes narrowed against sun and spray, the pale skin tanned like—

Like whose?

No, the memory was gone. But she did remember… “You used to live by the great water, Peysol? So did I.”

He looked up with sudden interest. “Did you? I never knew that.”

“You never asked. But I did. For a while. I don’t remember going sailing ever, though there were some of the elves there who did. I swam sometimes at night when I wouldn’t get sunburned. There was a little cove where the water was calm, and I’d go there and swim all alone. Then if there was enough moonslight, I’d look for shells on the beach. I’d hide the prettiest ones in a secret place I had in the rocks, so I could take them out and look at them later. Sometimes there would be one big enough to hold to your ear, and you could hear the sea in it.”

Peysol’s face was alight now. “Yes, we had those, too. Ah, Lake, I wish I could have seen you then. It would suit you. I can imagine you coming to shore after a night swim, rising from the waves with your eyes like coral or the inside of one of those shells, and your hair as white as the foam … beautiful, as always.” He lapsed into silence, imagining or remembering.

Beautiful … _he_ had said she was beautiful, by the sea … as no one ever had before…

He?

A voice that did not sound like her own spoke into the cool blue underwater silence. It was soft and hesitant, the voice of a young girl just coming into maidenhood. “My first joining … was by the sea.”

“Was it?” Peysol’s voice matched hers in softness, as if this latest reminiscence were a shy, wild thing that could easily be frightened away.

“Yes, on the Rock Bluffs. In the moonslight. It was cold, but the sea was beautiful … and Tyaar said … I would soon be warm…” She trailed off, confused.

Tyaar said?

But of course her first joining had been with Tyaar. Hadn’t it? That tender, urgent, passionate awakening of her senses had been his doing, only his, it had to have been—

—by the sea?

_Tyaar?_

“Little queen,” said Peysol very gently, “I think you too must have been dreaming. Tyaar has not lived by the sea—none of us have—since long, long before you were born. Not since before the founding of Tower Mountain.”

Of course it could not have been by the sea. Then why did she remember—

—being alone with him on the Rock Bluffs, where she could hear the crashing of the great water echoing below them … the waves beating at the edges of her memories…

…his blue eyes were luminous … ice blue? Of course they were, so why did the sea reflect a darker shade, like sapphires, and hair not straight and golden but curling beneath her fingers and black as midnight…

The sea washed into her memories and swept away what she had thought was as solid as the Tower itself, but was in truth no more than a construction of sand.

“Of course it wasn’t Tyaar. It was—it was—S-Seahawk!”

Peysol stared at her with ill-concealed surprise. Lake guessed it was not only because of the unfamiliar name that had come from her lips. She had not stuttered for nearly three turns, since Tyaar healed her mind.

(…as much as it could be healed…)

_I’m not mad! I’m not!_

_**Of course not, my little queen. You are perfect.**_

_But how could I have forgotten? How could I have thought—?_

Peysol’s expression had shifted from surprise to concern. He reached out and touched her hand. “You’re distressed. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to remember—that time.” 

“No, I’m not distressed.” She laughed, a brittle sound. “Just a little confused, that’s all.”

“Quite understandable.” His tone was gentle. “Your life Outside can’t have been easy. That would confuse anyone.” Which was his tactful way of saying that by the time she came to the Tower she had not had a clear memory or a rational thought in her head. “Since then, Tyaar has become very important to you. It’s only natural you would think of him that way.”

There was more to it than that, Lake was sure. Tyaar had been teaching her many things of late, about the intricacies of the mind and how it could be manipulated. That even Tyaar—mentor, lover, lord, as he was to her—might have done something of the kind to _her_ was an idea she wasn’t sure how to deal with. She rather thought she might be angry later, though being angry with Tyaar was dangerous. For the moment she smiled and accepted Peysol’s explanation. “Of course.” The look in her eyes became speculative and her smile changed to a conspiratorial grin. “But I don’t think I’ll mention Seahawk to him. He might get jealous.”

_I know something you don’t know,_ she chanted at Tyaar in the depths of her mind.

Peysol laughed. “He might, at that. Very well—it will be our little secret. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Won’t tell what?” Leravie asked, coming through the doorway from the bedroom. Her dark brown hair was still tousled from sleep and she had a green dressing gown wrapped carelessly about her.

“The secret,” said Lake.

“What secret?” Peysol asked blandly.

“I don’t know. I’ve forgotten,” she replied even more blandly, then caught his eye and burst into laughter, in which he joined her.

“You’re incredibly cheerful this morning,” observed Leravie as she seated herself at the table next to Peysol and reached for the berries. “Especially for someone who was tossing and turning and muttering in his sleep all night. Were you having sea dreams again?”

“Yes. But it’s given me a wonderful new idea for a gown for Lake. Imagine her rising from the sea…”

Lake listened appreciatively as Peysol went on to describe his design idea in detail, already imagining how well it would set off her exotic beauty at the next Tower Mountain affair. But within herself, before hiding it away in the secret places of her mind, she turned over her newly recovered memory like a shining shell found on the beach, a gift of the sea.

Seahawk. Seahawk. She would not forget again.


End file.
